Category: Self-Love

Self-love isn’t about achieving self-perfection. It’s about recognizing your flaws and yet loving yourself anyways. It’s the ability to look in a mirror and not hate your rolls or thick thighs or that one patch of hair that never seems to lay flat. It’s being able to see yourself in a new light, one that highlights your inner beauty and incredible strengths. Self-love is the understanding that even in your lowest moments, you are still beautiful. And while this may be a difficult concept to fully grasp, it is one that I will strive for every day in every moment I’m alive. We must learn to love ourselves rather than rely on the world to do it for us because if that is the case, we will always be sorely disappointed.

I can’t sleep. My eyes are red, my mouth is dry, my lips blistered from my obsessive licking. I roll over. My arm goes numb. I switch sides. My other arm goes numb. I roll onto my back. A brick crushes my chest, and the air struggles to fill up my lungs. In a blind panic I bolt out of bed and into the bathroom. My heart is racing, hands are sweating, knees are trembling, mind is faltering.

No one can know. No one can see. I MUST keep this a secret. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. Everything is fine. Everything WILL BE fine. I’m okay. I’m okay.

My uncontrollable sobs threaten to creep out from underneath the locked bathroom door and break the quiet silence of the night. I cover my mouth with a towel and let the tears flow freely.

They mustn’t know. No one can know. I’m okay. Please let me be okay.
The world around me is spinning. I hold onto the edge of the bathtub and slowly lower myself to the floor. Why is this happening again? Why am I so sad? Why do I feel so alone?

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m…not…okay.

The realization of this sends me into another round of heaving breaths and muffled sobs. I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe? The air is thick and heavy and threatens to choke me. I cough and cough as if I can somehow cough up all this pain that’s threatening to tear through my chest.

I’m not okay I’m not okay I’m not okay Oh God why am I not okay why is this happening to me why can’t I just be okay please stop please stop please stop

Silence.

My breathing steadies. My chest begins to rise and fall, once again at a steady pace.

Just. Breathe. Everything will be okay. Breathe.

And it’s over. Just like that. Another panic attack has come and gone. I stand up slowly, my knees still shaking. Staring back at me from the mirror is an image of a broken girl, her face a dark shade of red, her eyes even darker. She’s a mess. Her matted hair is stuck to her freshly wetted cheeks, her nose dripping like a leaky faucet.

I turn on the sink, check to make sure the water is cold, and then splash a wave onto my face, not caring where the water goes. It trickles down my red cheeks, washing away the sticky warmth my tears had left behind. A few more deep breathes, and back to bed I go. Sleep won’t come easily tonight.

It is never easy to write about your own insecurities, and yet here I am, dedicating an entire blog to them. Maybe I’m crazy, or maybe, just maybe, this might be the best thing I’ve ever decided to do. Either way, here’s the deal. Whether a thousand people read these posts, or only one, my goal still remains the same. The purpose of this blog is for me to begin my journey towards a little concept known as “self-love”.

For those of you who don’t know me that well, and even for many of you who do, I suffer a daily struggle with my own self worth. While I understand that many people often have days where they don’t feel great about themselves, for me it’s different. Pulling myself out of bed everyday is a struggle. Seeing myself in the mirror is torture. Going out in public alone is terrifying. The point is that on most days I literally hate myself. There, I said it. Everything becomes a struggle, and while I usually have a fake smile painted onto my face, it’s almost always in response to me trying to hide my own fears and anxieties, or even to simply keep myself from breaking down into a mess of tears.

Now, before I get any negative comments, let me go ahead and say this: no, I have not been diagnosed with any type of mental illness, depression, or anxiety disorder. However, most likely the reason for this is because I’m too scared to go and get tested. That being said, I am not trying to self diagnose myself with any kind of condition. This blog is simply a way for me to come to terms with myself and hopefully bring me to a point where I can finally look at myself in a mirror and not absolutely despise what I see.

If you have managed to read this far, congratulations. I know my writing style can be a bit “rambly”, so I am thankful to you for sticking through it to the end. Please understand that this blog is not going to be easy for me. I’m typically the type of person who listens to everyone else’s problems rather than ever talking about her own. It’s difficult for me to open up to others, but I believe that if I try to document my journey, while also trying to come to terms with who I am and what my purpose is, then maybe I will be able to inspire someone else who struggles from similar issues to my own.

At the end of the day, I would like to hear that someone else found some sort of inspiration from this blog; however, my main goal is to simple: I want to love myself. That concept seems foreign to me, but hopefully by the end of this journey it will feel natural. Thank you for taking the time to read this little introduction to the future of my blog, and if you continue to follow me on this journey, I hope I can inspire you while also inspiring myself.